Israel’s ‘Golden Opportunity’ to Wean Itself Off US Military Aid

Photo Credit: U.S. Army Europe.

The U.S. Army unloads a THAAD missile-defense system in Israel, March 2019.

(JNS) Israelis have learned that U.S. military aid is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, the Ministry of Defense has made unprecedented purchases—more than $10 billion during 14 months of war—but on the other, Washington has leveraged that dependence to induce Israel to make decisions counter to its interests.

U.S. governments have tried to leverage weapons supply before, according to Raphael BenLevi of the Misgav Institute for National Security and Zionist Strategy, a Jerusalem-based think tank. However, he tells JNS, “it’s been acute and extreme in the past year.”

Recent events have bolstered the argument of those who say that Israel’s long-term interests are not served by the current aid framework.

Under the U.S. Foreign Military Financing program, Israel receives about $3.3 billion in aid each year, provided as grants. Israel must use those funds to purchase American military equipment and services. Israel also receives $500 million annually for cooperative programs for missile defense.

“We’ve dug ourselves into this dependency. It’s like welfare. People on welfare get used to having a certain amount of external aid. A day comes when they have to rearrange their affairs in order to manage without it,” says BenLevi.

In September, BenLevi published a position paper for Misgav titled “The future of American military aid to Israel,” detailing the reasons for rethinking that assistance. There is an “unhealthy dynamic,” in which the U.S. gives and Israel takes, he argues, leaving Israel “beholden.”

“At the strategic level, the advantages of independence and moving to a more reciprocal relationship with Washington clearly outweigh the benefits of continuing the status quo of dependence and receiving aid, which are mainly on the immediate economic level,” he writes.

The downsides of dependence have been made abundantly clear during the current war against Hamas.

Few outside the Biden administration deny that the U.S. has slow-walked the resupply of war materiel to Israel. While the White House admitted delaying shipments of 2,000-pound bombs, GOP senators accused President Joe Biden in September of holding up Apache helicopters and D9 armored tractors (used by the Israel Defense Forces to clear explosives).

In October, U.S. administration officials sent a hectoring letter to Israel listing numerous steps it must take, “starting now and within 30 days,” to improve humanitarian conditions in Gaza or risk U.S. resupply.

While individual Israeli politicians have voiced concern, the topic has not come up for discussion in the Cabinet because of the wartime emergency, according to BenLevi.

“What has become clear is the fact that Israel has not maintained its own independent arms manufacturing for bombs and the like. It has become dependent on resupply on a monthly and even weekly basis. And that really has driven home for a lot of people that this dependence is unsustainable,” he says.

Memorandum of Understanding

The current aid framework comes under a 10-year, $38 billion Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed between the U.S. and Israel during the Obama administration. It runs from U.S. fiscal year 2018 to 2028 (Oct. 1, 2017-Sept. 30, 2027).

A new MOU will be negotiated under the second Trump administration, presenting what Gideon Israel, founder and president of the Jerusalem-Washington Center, a group working to strengthen the U.S.-Israel relationship, calls “a golden opportunity.”

The Jewish state would have had to reassess American aid regardless of whether a Democrat or a Republican had won the presidential election, he noted.

“If Kamala Harris had won, Israel would have needed to figure out very quickly how to produce as many munitions as possible on its own,” Gideon Israel says. “The Democrats wouldn’t have cut aid, but they would have placed onerous conditions on receiving it, coercing Israel to sacrifice its interests in various ways.”

With Donald Trump, it’s different. While his government will be willing to sell Israel the weapons it needs, the incoming administration has signaled it wants strong allies that stand on their own, according to the Jerusalem-Washington Center president. He noted Vice President-elect J.D. Vance’s comments in May: “Do we want clients who depend on us, who can’t do anything without us? Or do we want real allies who can actually advance their interests on their own with America playing a leadership role?”

Israel added, “Unlike most other U.S. administrations, whether Republican or Democrat, who are happy to throw money at an issue, but for whom diplomatic support comes at a much higher price, the Trump administration is just the opposite. Diplomatic support is much easier. What they don’t want is to lavish money, because they feel America can’t afford it.”

BenLevi agrees that trends within both parties raise doubts that the current aid framework is sustainable.

0.7% of Israeli GNP

Israel is less in need of the aid than it was in the 1970s and 1980s. American aid as a percentage of Israel’s Gross National Product has dropped over the decades, as the Jewish state’s economy has expanded.

“In 1995, the value of aid was 5.7% of Israel’s GNP. … [T]oday the value of aid is 0.7% of Israel’s GNP. This indicates the ability of the Israeli economy to deal with a gradual reduction of aid over time,” BenLevi notes in his report.

Israel is “definitely capable” of drawing down its dependency over a 10-year period, he tells JNS. Under Trump’s administration, cutting back the aid will not be broadcast as a weakening of the strategic relationship, but as an Israeli decision made with the full backing of the United States.

Big-ticket items, such as fighter jets, may still require American support, but that’s less serious from a dependency perspective, BenLevi says. They cannot be leveraged to pressure Israel the same way urgently needed munitions can be: “It’s a long-term item. You can’t say, ‘We won’t supply next-generation planes if you go into Rafah next month.’”

Sometimes overlooked is the value that the U.S. derives when Israel uses its platforms, he says. Israel is perhaps the best salesman America’s defense industry has. On Dec. 5, for instance, Adm. Tony Radakin, chief of the British Defence Staff, said Israel showed the “power” of the F-35 fighter jet in its retaliatory strikes on Iran in October.

“Israel is a proving ground for American weapons,” BenLevi says. “Israel develops additional subsystems that make these platforms more advanced.”

BenLevi, who has closely studied the ramifications of Israeli dependence on American largesse, says it may be more harmful than people realize. It has shifted Israel’s central security doctrine away from controlling territory to ceding ground and adopting a defensive strategy.

Israel has been asked to take security risks, sometimes described as “sacrifices for peace.” In those cases, the U.S. promised additional aid to counterbalance the risks, whether at the 1978 Camp David Accords ahead of peace with Egypt, when Israel agreed to withdraw from the Sinai Peninsula, or during negotiations under Prime Ministers Ehud Olmert and Ehud Barak to give up most of Judea and Samaria.

When Israel abandoned the Gaza Strip in 2005, for example, and received a barrage of missiles in return, a massive outlay was required for the Iron Dome missile defense system. If Israel had never left, then it would not have required financial support to resupply Iron Dome interceptors. By returning to its original security doctrine, namely holding territory, Israel would in fact reduce its security needs, BenLevi argues.

He does not dispute that America’s support for Israel is a strategic asset, sending a message to Israel’s enemies that a great power stands behind it. However, when that power acts to rein in Israel, it sends the opposite message and undermines deterrence. It projects the image that Israel is “a country that is unable to act without American approval.”

For the Gulf states, for instance, “Israel is seen as an asset precisely when it shows a readiness to confront Iran, whether the U.S. supports these steps or not.”